Beats Music offers curated music streaming, has bugs

If you haven’t logged on to Beats Music by now, you won’t be able to until the service works out some bugs.

Launched on Tuesday, Beats Music aims to provide a curated music-streaming experience, with playlists created by a team of nine programmers. Unfortunately, the high volume of interest after launch caused some users to experience issues, according to a blog post by CEO Ian Rogers. While current users can continue listening, new users are not being allowed on board.

“Most people are unaffected but our priority is to give everyone a great experience,” Rogers wrote. “We prepared for issues like these, have a plan, and are going to hold off on letting more people in while we put this plan in action.”

The service will be free for its first week, after which it costs $9.99 per month. People who register this week will have an additional seven days added to their free trial.

Beats Music is available for web and iOS, Windows Phone, and Android. I downloaded the iPhone version on Tuesday just in time for my commute home. The setup process involved clicking on colored circles to indicate which music genres and artists I like and dislike. With that finished, I should have been able to stream music.

I encountered problems right away. One song randomly skipped to the next after 30 seconds. Others took longer than they should have to load. My experience with the app this morning was much more successful.

Here’s one of my recent creations in “the sentence.”

People willing to tolerate — or wait out — Beats Music’s bugs will find a range of new and familiar music-streaming features. The “just for you” playlist is based on the listener’s genre and artist preferences. One of my current suggestions is “cooking with indie,” which presumably includes music suitable for prepping a meal.

Users can also try “the sentence” to create a playlist. Beats Music suggests a sentence — my current one is “I’m at work & feel like driving with myself to seminal indie” — and lets you replace parts to reflect your status. I changed “driving” to “saving the world” and heard tracks like “Cactus” by Pixies and “Here Comes My Baby” by Yo La Tengo.

Other listening options include “highlights” of top artists and “find it,” which enables users to stream by genre, activities, and curators.

Beats Music is based in Santa Monica and San Francisco, just miles from music-streaming giant Pandora. The company’s co-founders include Interscope/Geffen/A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine and artist and producer Dr. Dre. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails serves as chief creative officer, while Beats Electronics chairman Luke Wood is vice chairman.

Like Pandora, Beats Music allows users to give feedback on song selections. My responses were mostly negative at first. Maybe I misrepresented my music preferences early on, or the app is just getting to know me. Either way, I’ll keep exploring its playlists by editing “the sentence” and giving song feedback — at least until the $9.99 fee kicks in.